


In the waves my feelings will be undone

by palmmutations (eggwriter)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Illustrated, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Mermaids, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggwriter/pseuds/palmmutations
Summary: The creature looks to his hand, and then back up to his face."My name is Jon."Peter is bored, and the Atlantic is full of curious lifeforms that really ought know better than to bother him.
Relationships: Peter Lukas/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	In the waves my feelings will be undone

It was weeks before the _Tundra_ would reach London, the signature feeling of longing making itself known in every crewman aboard. They were a couple of miles away from Madeira, and if all went well they wouldn’t need to make a stop at its coast before continuing into Europe – as pretty as Madeira was, the _Tundra’s_ crew missed home; every task and chore was fulfilled with sighs and wistful stares into the solid grey sky. 

All of it was dreadfully boring. There was nothing but sky and sea for ages, and Peter had begun taking the opportunity to smoke; it was a nasty habit, but he had a pack of cigars that had been confiscated after a shore visit to the Canaries. The man who bought them had reluctantly surrendered the pack as Peter informed him they wouldn’t make it through customs – and then boredom had driven him to personally getting rid of the cigars before some London coast guard could smoke them up.

The first cigar went down not too smoothly – his habit relied more on bumming cigarettes from crewmen that didn’t dare say no to the captain – enjoyed alone against the railing of the _Tundra’_ s stern, no company but the occasional passing-by squall of seagulls. 

When Peter began the second cigar, the combination of a particularly nasty wave rolling through the _Tundra_ and him paying more attention to his lighter, caused the cigar to simply slip out of his hand and land in the ocean with a clear _plop_. 

For maybe three seconds Peter stood very still, staring haplessly at the dark waves of the Atlantic before blurting out, “Oh.”

There were still two more cigars in the handsomely designed box, positioned unsafely in his breast-pocket and able to fall out if there came a particularly harsh wave again. It was _embarrassing_ , and Peter suddenly felt particularly grateful for his solitude seeing as he apparently had sea-legs equally as bad if not worse than that of his ex-husband.

Something suddenly then flew out of the water. 

It wasn’t a trick of the light or a wave collapsing against itself, something _flew_ out of the water and landed against Peter’s boots. It took great effort to bow his head and look, terrified of what it could be and also quite certain what it _would_ be as he looks; the cigar, soaked wet and frayed at the edges.

He gave pause for three infinitely long seconds, stood very still and did not breathe. Very carefully, Peter nudged the cigar back over the railing with the tip of his boot, this time paying very close attention to where it plunged into the water.

When nothing immediately happened he felt somewhat silly, littering the ocean just because he briefly doubted his understanding of physics, and then – again the cigar was thrown out of the sea by some invisible force, even soggier this time round.

Peter crouched, more grateful than ever to be alone and not having his crew witness what they’d certainly chalk up to either sea madness or early onset dementia, so low his belly almost was flat to the deck. This time he properly threw the poor cigar some ten feet, scanning as it fell below the surface.

He counted. Five drawn out seconds passed, and then he stifled a gasp as a grey hand reached up and landed on the bottom railing. A dark-haired dome peaked above the deck, a fraction of a second passing breathlessly as a face came into view, and then stilled as it and Peter came eye to wet-black eye. The face froze with shock, mouth gently parting to reveal sharp teeth not in a threat but in a gasp, and Peter barely begins to say “What–” before it plunges off the deck and disappears below the surface.

The cigar was dropped between Peter’s hands, left in a hurry.

* * *

Peter doesn’t brood. His father does, as does his uncle – but no matter what his ex-husband would like to say, _he_ doesn’t brood; a notion he staunchly stands by even during the second night of finding himself unable to sleep for thought of the creature he saw at the stern’s deck.

Perhaps ‘creature’ is an unbecoming term for it; he had only seen it for a split second, but it had been enough to note a face of decidedly humanoid appearance, but grey and mottled instead of a skin color. Had the hands been webbed? He couldn’t quite remember – the shock of seeing a _hand_ appear out of the sea had blurred his memory with adrenaline.

On the third night Peter gave up, deciding if he’s going to be sleepless at least he will occupy himself during, rolling out of the cot to don his boots and a cloak of the Lonely to be certain he’d remain undisturbed as he went onto the deck.

Even though they were on tropical longitudes as compared to England, it was too cold to go without a jacket. It was a bright night – the _Tundra_ didn’t keep particularly many lights on, meaning there was nothing to drown out the stars or the speck of moon above them. 

The hope of seeing the creature three days after their initial meeting was maybe a bit far fetched; Peter was relying on the notion that the creature had looked very intelligent and that if it had appeared once it might appear again, but this was a very slim chance. 

He did have _one_ idea for how to summon the creature again, and it made him feel indeed very stupid to the point of dearly hoping he wouldn’t end up feel the Beholding land on him tonight. He sat down on the stern and put his legs over the deck, a dangerous feat in the middle of the night with no one to hear him, safely wrapping his arms around the metal railing so he would have something to hold onto.

Feeling quite a bit like a young lad sneaking out at night rather than a captain of his own ship, Peter began to hesitantly hum:

_Come all ye jolly tinner boys, and listen unto me_

_I’ll tell you all a story as you are bound to sea_

_Concernin’ Boney Peartie and the plans that he hath made_

_To stop our tin and copper mines, and all our pilchard trade…_

It was a song he had gotten off a ship with a particularly patriotic crew in Plymouth – it was slow and with a symmetrical enough rhythm for him to remember it, even some years later – and in the pubs of Devonport it hadn’t mattered that Napoleon had been dead for nearly two hundred years. 

Peter stammered and slurred his way through the final stanza, racking his head for other songs that would be fit to murmur aboard the _Tundra_ when there is the soft noise of something emerging from the water. He carefully peered down and was met with two harrowingly intense eyes peeking just above the water surface, staring up at him unblinking. Peter abruptly remembered he was no good at introductions. 

“Hello there,” he said quietly. The creature did not make any motion to imply it had heard him, eyeing him suspiciously before it moved just an inch closer. 

“Why were you singing alone?” it said, lifting its head minutely above the water — only _he_ has a decidedly masculine voice, a dry British accent bringing to mind snooty parliaments rather the deep sea. 

The bluntness of the question catches Peter off guard, and he truthfully blurts out, “I like being alone.” 

The creature – the man? – swims closer, the entire time keeping Peter in his uninterrupted gaze and not thawing in the slightest.

“You were the one throwing trash into the water,” the man says in a venomous tone, now close enough for Peter to see his sharp teeth glitter above dark gray lips. 

Peter raised his hands in defense, “Not _throwing_ , mind you– it fell on accident.”

The man’s eyes narrow. “Thrice?”

Peter scratched his neck a little awkwardly. “First one was an accident, then I had to check whatever was going on.” The man looks slightly unconvinced, and Peter at last thinks to introduce himself, reaching his hand out in a symbolic gesture; “My name is Peter Lukas.”

At last there is something like diplomatic interest glittering in the man’s eyes. “You’re the captain of the ship.”

“However do you know that?”

The man shrugs a neat shoulder. “The crew talks a lot, and very loudly,” he says, apparently not picking up on Peter’s dismay to be gossiped about. He looks at Peter’s hand, and then up at his face; “My name is Jon.”

It becomes somewhat of a routine; the Lonely never made Peter immune to boredom, and he’s surprised and a little disappointed when the change in monotony is a welcomed respite. 

* * *

Jon quickly proves himself to be very intelligent, at least as smart as Peter and quite likely beating some of his crewmen in intellect. He spoke flawless English in an inexplicable Londonian accent, and was even able to read – when Peter asked him however that was possible, Jon took it as a grave insult and left for the evening.

The night after that, however, Jon’s insatiable curiosity brings him to the stern again: if there has been some commotion aboard the ship during the day, he will ask about it the next time he and Peter speak – which implies that Jon spends most of his days in close vicinity to the _Tundra_. 

“Whatever was all that cheering for?” Jon once asks while Peter is sat at the railing, too early in the evening to guarantee them privacy so Peter has set up a barrier to make sure they remain undisturbed.

The ‘cheering’ Jon is referring to was one of the youngest crewmen, Robin, turning twenty-five; Peter would prefer no such domesticity or celebration, but the other men had insisted on it being a special occasion and there had been a mingle of enthusiastic and awkward hoots as they celebrated the man.

“It was a man’s birthday,” he explained.

Jon frowned. “You have _children_ on board?”

“No, no – _his_ birthday, you know, the day of the year he was born,” Peter went on sheepishly, but Jon’s face indicated he hadn’t the slightest idea what Peter meant – belatedly Peter came to the conclusion sea-creatures might not have any concept of ‘days’ at all.

* * *

Eventually Peter settles on ‘merfolk’ as an apt term for Jon, especially as he sees him in brighter light and gets a better look at him; body-wise he is somewhat small, lean and thin and with a frame half as wide as Peter’s, but that is only his more human half. Jon’s tail is a marine grey and speckled like a seal, at least ten feet long from waist to tail-tip. His face is not unhandsome, and the dark-amber eyes in combination with his alluring mane of hair makes it not at all impossible to envision him to be a creature capable of seducing men into their own watery deaths.

He too has some ability of forcing words out of Peter’s mouth even when Peter very much would prefer not to speak, which he attributes as some sort of siren-song but reminds him eerily much of bloody Beholders and their sodded institutes. 

Jon remains cautious of him, as though Peter at any time might lunge forwards and try to pull him out of the water like a prize fish or shark he intends to cut the fins off of. Peter knows that there are men who would do just so – putting Jon and his kin in tanks or cages to be gawked at and sold to high bidders; Jon’s sharp teeth and claws could savage skin and flesh, but they would do little against harpoons and nets.

* * *

It is becoming a habit, and an unwanted one at that. Belonging to the Forsaken doesn’t mean Peter cannot have any acquaintances whatsoever, there are some standards which he holds of himself. 

It’s not as though he is completely alone – there is Salesa and his crew, and his (ex) husband, but they are all relationships he has acquired after lengthy periods of time. He has only known Jon for a little over a month, and already he is too close for comfort. 

Then again, Peter thinks in sour counterargument, it is not as though there is anyone to chastise him but himself, and at least he isn’t so very bored anymore.

* * *

When they’ve spoken for a week, Jon visibly becomes somewhat more comfortable in his company. His curiosity strays from the ship and instead to various things on the ship – a few times Jon would grab onto the stanchions and haul himself bodily up so that he is half out of water and half on the deck. He never strays away from the edge of the deck, however, always able to quickly dive back into the ocean if someone should see them.

Peter makes sure that it never happens: there is a thick barrier of Lonely ensuring that they won’t be noticed by anyone aboard, and he takes some extra measures to not frighten Jon into leaping off the deck or putting to use his respectable teeth and claws. 

It only takes two times of crawling aboard the deck for Jon to decide he’s seen everything the _Tundra_ has to offer and instead turns his attention to what Peter has on his person – his reading glasses, his phone, his watch, particularly his reservoir pens, and then one time–

And one time, while Peter is leaning over as Jon inspects a piece of paper, he feels the thin chain he wears crawl out from under his collar, and before he can stop it, it falls out of his jacket and hangs loose in the air. 

It glitters in the light, and Jon’s pupils swell cat-like, immediately landing on the much more interesting necklace rather than the texture of the paper.

“What is that?” he asks as Peter’s hand lands on it, hides it, hides it away from anyone’s sight. “Is it jewelry?”

“…of sorts,” Peter offers hesitantly; it is his wedding ring, kept on a small silver chain, not because Peter has hope that he will get married again but because… well, he doesn’t quite know. 

“It is very pretty,” Jon says a little plaintively, and Peter pushes it back into his sweater where it is safe and hidden from sight.

* * *

Jon dutifully interrogates Peter during their meetings about things on land, using that terrible compelling power so that Peter tells him everything he knows about how the dry parts of ships work, and what the purpose of the _Tundra_ is. He isn’t terribly interested in land, saying he has been ashore a few times – which he says as if it is obvious, however that is possible. 

Through little tidbits of information Peter realizes the mer is much older than he looks, solidified when Jon gives a first-hand account of seeing a diving bell in use.

* * *

Though Jon does not ask about the necklace again, perhaps noting Peter’s reluctance to speak of it, its mere existence invites Jon to suddenly over the course of their meetings instead show Peter all sorts of trinkets: 

Lost jewelry, rusted tools, used chains, glass bottles and bottle-caps, coins and literal doubloons – Jon is confused over how amused Peter is when he brings him a fork. Many of them are genuinely interesting, Peter must admit, some certainly able to make a pretty penny if sold to a museum – and then most notably;

“Peter, look!” Jon cries, and then using both hands he raises what undeniably is a sword.

It is the largest object he has brought so far, nearly three feet long with a curved blade adorned with rust. Peter’s jaw drops at the sight, and very carefully takes it as Jon hands him the sword _(!)_ and heaves himself up beneath the railing to inspect it.

“Wherever did you find this?” Peter asks, handling the weapon gently in fear of either cutting himself or breaking the brittle blade in two.

Jon looks immensely pleased with himself. “Is it very valuable? When do you think it came from? Humans only use guns for war now, don’t you?”

“I’ve no idea,” Peter says, and Jon’s fins slack in visible disappointment. “We’re near both Spain and France, which doesn’t narrow it down in the slightest – it ought to be a hundred years old at least.”

“There’s more where it came from,” Jon says. “There’s entire ships here and there, and canons, but they’re far too heavy to bring back up. Do you think the sword is very valuable?” Jon asks. Peter nods assent, and Jon’s eyes glitter with delight; “Then would you keep it safe for me until I go home? I can’t travel with it, but I’d like to keep it.”

Peter then suddenly realizes that Jon has been swimming alongside the _Tundra_ for weeks now, seemingly for no reason except that he likes Peter’s company. The waters are cold and they’ve been making several miles a day; Jon is making the effort of following along for Peter’s sake. 

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” Peter promises, dismayed by the affectionate warmth making itself known in his throat.

* * *

They are deep in the English Channel by now and meant to reach London in three weeks. The thought of shoreleave should bring Peter relief, but instead it only makes something grow tight and unhappy in his chest.

Jon is still following them around, though Peter does not know how he’s avoiding the traffic of the Channel. He has begun to greet Peter with a smile at their nightly encounters, a flash of his bright sharp teeth in the dark as he crawls up on the deck without a second thought, all his previous distrust gone weeks ago. Multiple times he has suggested that the _Tundra_ should stop and dive for treasures he has found, even though Peter just as many times has explained to Jon that they’re not _that_ kind of merchant ship.

“I wish you could swim with me,” Jon mutters, his tail swaying over the railing. “I’ve seen humans do it sometimes. Is it very hard to do so without fins?”

“Not at all,” Peter says, “though that’s not the issue; if I jumped into the Atlantic I think I’d freeze to death in less than an hour.”

“Oh,” Jon says, apparently not at all having considered this angle. Jon himself is stark nude but entirely featureless, like a seal or a snake. Even aboard the deck he has never given any indication he is sensitive to the cold that Peter finds so fatal.

* * *

Peter thinks about how very much he should end things, to stop going out on deck and let Jon roam the Channel alone, never knowing what happened to him. All his dreams are full of salt water and silver pebbles, long sways of hair moving through the ocean.

* * *

“Can I touch the hair on your face?” Jon asks, a sudden and intimate request that causes Peter to reach up and cover his chin. Jon hurries to add, “ _We_ don’t have any hair there, and I see it on humans sometimes. May I?”

“If I get to touch your gills,” Peter replies a little petulantly, imagining it will be far too great an ask, but instead Jon simply nods and agrees to it, so Peter has to sigh and sit back to fulfill his part of the bargain.

It is a little awkward only because Jon has to sort of crawl into his lap to do so, his tail and fins brushing against Peter’s leg. His slightly webbed fingers run through Peter’s beard, and Jon makes a contemplative noise at the sensation. Jon is a little uncertain at first, but then he finds some confidence and pulls his hand through Peter’s beard as though he is petting a cat. Peter chuckles softly to himself at the analogy, taking Jon’s wrist to stop him when he decides he’s had enough of being treated like a ship’s mog.

“All right, that’s that,” Peter says, and Jon looks annoyed to be interrupted in his caresses. He stays true to his word however, tucking back his hair and baring his neck, holding it out for Peter to touch.

“Go ahead,” Jon says, closing his eyes and waiting. Peter suddenly wonders if he has made a poor decision, but Jon holds very still so that the fine gills that grow along his neck and collarbones are just within reach. Peter suddenly finds that his breath comes uneasily.

Jon frowns when Peter hasn’t touched him, looking at him and cocking his head to the side in confusion. His eyes, it’s those damn eyes that get Peter the most – a deep amber only visible when Jon’s pupils are thin and feline, usually eclipsed by his pupils grown large and round in interest.

“Peter?” he asks, concerned, and his frown deepens as Peter lands a hand on Jon’s neck and one on his jaw, and kisses him. 

The skin feels bizarrely human-like, not cold or particularly wet, so much _warmer_ than he expected Jon to be. His black hair brushes over Peter’s fingers, silky and strangely warm – all of him is so much warmer than one would expect a sea creature to be, from his hair to his face to his lips.

Jon makes a little noise in his throat and his mouth pushes back against Peter’s, sharp teeth against Peter’s tongue as he notes that Jon tastes like salt and rust. His hand smooths over Jon’s gills, and Jon suddenly gasps and his teeth sink scalpel-deep into Peter’s bottom lip and blood floods into his mouth. Peter comes to his senses at once, pulling away as if scalded and landing a hand on his mouth, staring at Jon whose lips are splotched red with his blood. Jon snaps out of some trance and slaps a hand over his own mouth, his eyes wide with shock as he then dives past the railing and back into the water, without another word. 

* * *

“Good god, how did you do this to yourself?” navigation officer Matthews asks as he’s patching Peter’s lip up, the only man aboard with enough first-aid experience to be called anything resembling a medic. Peter would have been happy to ignore the wound and sleep it off, but within the first hour it became obvious it needed stitches. 

He told Matthews something about having fallen and sunk his teeth through his lower lip, which was embarrassing but better than _‘I tried to kiss a mermaid.’_ Peter avoids the edge of the deck for a week, too ashamed to risk seeing Jon again and having to deal with the aftermath of kissing him, because even if Jon kissed back it won’t matter; they are barely a week away from London shore and the waters are getting busy. Soon they will be on month-long shore leave, too far away from the ocean – something Peter has been aware of for long and _resents_ for the fact it hurts like a thorn buried in his chest.

* * *

“I hurt you, didn’t I,” comes a voice from the ocean, so thin with misery that Peter barely hears it for the wash of the waves. It takes him by surprise – Peter has hid himself behind a thick layer of fog that he thought impenetrable. He leans over the railing and sees Jon nowhere, though he can feel him there. 

“Not at all,” Peter replies, which is a slight exaggeration, and instantly Jon’s small head peeks out of the surface and the sight of his dark-brown eyes cause Peter’s heart to twinge with something that could be guilt.

“Then why have you been ignoring me?” Jon asks, now less unhappy and more irritated, and Peter has to look away. After his divorce he had hoped he wouldn’t need to ever _feel_ again, but the world seems to enjoy proving him wrong.

“Because it’s easier like this. I’m leaving soon,” Peter says, leaning against the railing. “I’ll be going to London, and we won’t be able to see one another anymore.”

“Why not? There’s the Thames, isn’t there?”

“Oh dear creature, you’ll catch all sorts of diseases in a matter of minutes if you swim into the River _Thames_ ,” Peter says, and Jon looks disappointed.

“If I could come to London, would you let me accompany you?” Jon asks, and though there is an innocence to his words that terrible siren-like power form behind them. Peter’s jaw clatters and he almost bites his tongue, his body wanting to respond even though he truly does not know.

* * *

Less than a week before they’re making shore, Peter is ripped out of his thoughts by a young cadet coming running down the deck and crying out, “Captain, there’s a person overboard!”

“Who is it?” Peter asks, already making to run as the cadet shakes his head.

“Not crew – it’s some stranger,” the young man says, entirely ignorant of the dread this stokes in Peter’s gut, “we’re trying to get ‘em up now.”

 _Please don’t be him_ , Peter thinks as he runs after the young man and towards the commotion, _please, god, be anything but him_. 

The crew have already hauled up not only the overboard fellow but also what looks to be the English Channel’s entire kelp population, dragged aboard with a combination of fishing nets and hastily thrown lifebuoy and now being detangled from all these means of rescue. 

It isn’t Jon, except it is; his skin isn’t grey but more like bronze beneath the mess of kelp and the crew’s hands trying to get him loose, but most eye-catchingly, his tail is _gone_ – instead there are two legs gently moving beneath the ocean grime. He is shivering something terrible, and one crewman offers him his jacket as Jon now is very notably naked. It is late winter and the Channel is freezing cold, any normal man would quickly get hypothermia and the crew fuss over Jon – “Good lad, get up now” – as he’s made to stand up on wobbly legs that Peter can’t keep himself from dumbly gawking at.

Jon does not respond to any of the many crew’s questions, where he came from and whatever he was doing in the water; instead he only looks to Peter and gives a small smile, his dark eyes and sharp teeth glittering.

* * *

Scarcely has Peter been so grateful for his crew’s tolerance for the esoteric; he gives some nonsense answer that they’ll drop Jon off at London and that they don’t need to worry about it, and that seems to sate their curiosity enough to shrug it off. 

It was only obvious that Jon should share Peter’s cabin, which he eagerly examines on still wobbling legs, often needing to lean onto Peter’s side for support in an intimate gesture that brings great attention to the fact Jon now only reaches his shoulder. 

“Could you have done this the entire time?” Peter asks, referring to Jon’s legs which he has been growing accustomed to over the course of the day. They do not pass as completely human: they’re covered in iridescent little scales and with webbing running between Jon’s toes, but he still proves able to wear the pair of boots a sailor nobly offers him. 

“Not quite,” Jon says nonchalantly, busy inspecting himself and the clothes that have been graciously offered to him to keep him warm and clothed. “I needed this,” his thumb lands on Peter’s patched up bottom lip, causing his breath to catch, “to remember what this form looks like.”

There are all sorts of little details that reveal Jon as not-quite human – his too sharp teeth, his eyes reflecting the light, the faint outline of his gills – but even in this somewhat changed form he is so decidedly familiar that every little affection makes Peter’s heart flutter worrisomely.

“I’ve never been _in_ London before,” Jon says, lurid with the thought of being someplace new. “Though I’m a little concerned with the air – whatever will I do if I get dry?”

“It rains nearly all the time,” Peter says, thinking of grey buildings and wet streets. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :>


End file.
